The increased amount of methane is being expelled into the atmosphere because of the rise in rice farming in parts of Africa, a research paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change said.

The research was conducted by a team of engineers and atmospheric scientists at Harvard University, working with a colleague from the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

They have discussed how they recalculated methane emissions after increases in rice production in sub-Saharan Africa and their findings.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas, previous reports have said, adding that it has more radiative properties than CO2.

Agriculture activities, from crops and livestock combined, account for approximately 25% of all human-caused methane emissions into the atmosphere, according to the research. “Growing rice in sub-Saharan Africa doubled in production from 2008 to 2018,” it said.

After comparing greenhouse gas emissions from 2008 to 2024, they found that the reason for emission was growing rice, such as irrigating, flooding patties, burning fields, and harvesting.

“The increase in rice production in Africa accounted for approximately 31% of the increases in methane emissions for all of Africa from 2006 to 2017, and 7% of the global rise in methane emissions for the same period,” it said.